Friday, 21 September 2012

Boxed Sets

Five of what I call Poul Anderson's nine future histories could each be, and two have been, published as a single volume. Imagine a boxed set called "Five Future Histories," containing:

(i) Tales Of The Flying Mountains;
(ii) the Rustum History (nine stories);
(iii) the Directorate History (four stories);
(iv) Starfarers, with "The Horn of Time the Hunter" as an Epilogue;
(v) Genesis (a good title to end with).

I discussed these distinct histories in earlier posts. All five deal with interstellar exploration and colonization at sub-light speeds.

The remaining four future histories - the Maurai History, the Psychotechnic History, the Technic History and the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy - are multi-volume works and the Technic History is long enough to need two boxed sets. Thus, six sets would collect all of Anderson's future histories.

It is convenient to divide Anderson's massive output into discrete sections which could form the basis of a Complete Works Edition. Another six boxed sets could be:

(vi) the King of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson);
(vii) five Viking era novels;
(viii) the Last Viking Trilogy;
(ix) three novels set in the fourteenth century, The High Crusade to include its short sequel as an Epilogue;
(x) the Time Patrol Series;
(xi) the Old Phoenix Sequence.

Maybe three novels and one collection set earlier than the Ys Tetralogy would be an opening set and a few volumes set in various later periods would be a thirteenth. Non-series short stories would have to be collected, maybe in chronological order of publication, in as many volumes as necessary.